what if i wake up tonight and you are real
by panlesters
Summary: Jake's side of the bed is cold, like it's not been used in weeks. Amy knows different, she knows he's probably just up working a particularly difficult case. He's there somewhere, she tells herself she's sure of it.


_**guess who's back with some Suffering**_ _ **  
**_ _ **i was listening to one love by marianas trench (go listen, that song will make you feel things) and this fic was born. enjoy!**_

It's early morning when Amy stirs. Through the blur of her half-asleep glance she sees the clock read 2:10. A soft sigh escapes her lips as she turns over to go back to sleep. She cautiously moves a hand out towards Jake to touch his arm. The bed is empty beside her and she frowns. Looking out into the dark room she whispers out to him.

"Jake." There's no response. She sees the darkness shift a little way by the door and huffs a breath. "Babe, come back to bed." The dark shape begins to make its way back towards the bed until Amy's eyes have adjusted enough to make out Jake, with his bed hair and hoodie on. He stands by the bed, silent and motionless. "Jake," Amy whispers again.

The bed beside her is cold, and she assumes he's been up all night pouring over some case. She shuffles towards the end of the bed and inhales his faint scent. It's too faint, as if he's been missing from it, as if he's not standing right in front of her right now. She looks back up at him and she _knows_ he's there, it's not just a trick of the light, he is there. She can't remember where she left him before she went to bed but she decides he was sat on their sofa with his laptop open, trying to find sources for the case he's working. She had been curled up on the other end, she faintly remembers, with the paper in her lap as she slowly worked her way through the killer sudoku in the quiz section.

Her brain is still fuzzy somehow, but she forces herself to remember what she made them for dinner that night. It was just a microwave meal. It was only for one but she wasn't hungry so they split it. They must have.

Amy looks back up at Jake, standing not far from her but never faltering from his position. She focuses on his face long enough to begin to make out the details, his mouth in a straight, serious line. It's a face she doesn't see often, and one she doesn't like much. His eyebrows are furrowed a little and his eyes reflect the light of the streetlamp outside. There's a sad look in those eyes. Amy frowns.

"Tough case, huh?" she murmurs, reaching out towards him to take his hand and encourage him to get into bed. He doesn't move, and her arm feels nothing. Her eyes shoot back up to Jake's. His eyes reflect her realisation: heartbreak, loneliness. Her vision begins to blur again as tears fill her eyes.

Amy sits up straight as her eyes fly open. The tears begin immediately, and she reaches across to Jake to check he's really there. All that meets her is the cold side of the bed where Jake should be, where Jake isn't. Her hand scrunches into a ball in the sheet as she begins to sob. She can barely see through her tears, but she knows the silhouette of her boyfriend next to her bed is gone. Reaching under Jake's pillow, she pulls out his hoodie, wrapping it around her body as she cries.

It's nights like this that rationality leaves her. She stops thinking about how her whole precinct is putting one hundred and ten percent of their being into catching Lieutenant Hawkins in the act, into proving her as the dirty cop she is, and into bringing Jake and Rosa home. She forgets the belief she has in herself as a detective to solve this case, and she loses faith in the people she has worked with and trusted with her life for years. She's crying and shaking, and all she can think about is that she's only going to have ten second hugs and an hour of talking every three weeks with the love of her life, with the man she is already sure she wants to marry, for fifteen damn years. One tiny, treacherous part of her mind tells her she's wasting her life, and that she should move on, that no sensible person would wait fifteen years. It's at times like this that Amy would normally ring someone. Gina, Charles, Terry, even Holt once when she was in the worst place and she felt like she had annoyed everyone else enough. Tonight, though, her phone stays far away from her. She wants Jake. She doesn't want sympathy, and she doesn't want to sit with someone who is going through the same thing as her. She wants her boyfriend, who has always been able to say something to make her feel better. Jake would, without fail, find something funny to talk about after he had pulled his sleeve over his hand and wiped away her tears. Damn, she missed him. She missed him so much, and the sobs wrack her body as she curls up in a ball, trying not to imagine spending the next fifteen years like this but not being able to push the image from her mind.

She falls asleep like this, and in the morning she wakes to Jake's scent wrapped around her. She lies still for a moment, imagining that Jake is here, that the scent is fresh and Jake is in the bed beside her. Sometimes she needs to imagine that he really is here, that she's not just wearing his hoodie, or it's not just the pillow beside her. She reaches across and feels the cold sheets that haven't held a body for six weeks. She opens her eyes and forces herself to stand up. She needs to shower and get ready for work. She needs to find Lieutenant Hawkins guilty.

Freshly showered, Amy looks at herself in the mirror, pain written subtly across her face. She knows no one else will see it, and no one would dare comment, but she hates seeing herself like this. Vulnerable and broken. She feels like a child as she stares at herself in the mirror. It might look normal from a distance, but she sees it. She sees her own loneliness in her sullen eyes. She sees her faith seeping away in the lips she has left chapped against the cold, with no desire to try and fix it. She sees her weakness in the bags under her eyes. As she stares herself in the mirror, she comes to a realisation. If she lets these things show, if she lets them take over, Hawkins has won. Amy opens her make up cabinet for the first time in two weeks. She skilfully begins her old make up routine, applying it to her face like armour. She will face the day. And she will make Lieutenant Hawkins rue the day she crossed paths with Jake Peralta and Rosa Diaz. One small victory at a time.

 _ **comments are always appreciated, come scream with me abt brooklyn nine nine on tumblr panlesters**_


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